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Medical expenses are often a source of anxiety for many patients, whether they are unsure about the amount owed or how they’ll ultimately pay for it. Unfortunately, intimidating collections processes don’t help, and a crisis like COVID-19 only exacerbates this stress. A more compassionate billing approach could help patients better navigate their financial obligations and also build long-term loyalty—a necessity for providers today looking to retain patient volume during a time of crisis. Consumers overwhelmingly want to understand the cost of healthcare services, prior to services being performed. Effective price transparency involves offering patients clear, accessible, and easy-to-understand estimates of their financial responsibility for services before they are performed. Give patients clarity from the start with precise pricing estimates and up-front info about what they’ll have to pay can reduce sticker shock, help them plan and create an overall better patient financial experience. By empowering your patients with financial expectations, their feeling of control increases, improving their engagement and the likelihood that you will collect payments faster and more efficiently. Just as you don’t provide identical medical treatment to every patient, processing all patient accounts the same way doesn’t make sense. Every patient is different. Using comprehensive data and advanced analytics, providers can better understand an individual's propensity to pay and make the payment process a positive one by assessing and assigning each patient to the appropriate financial pathway based on their unique financial situation. Medical bills are often the most direct contact providers have with patients after a service is rendered. Unfortunately, money is often a sensitive topic for patients and statements are often overwhelming and difficult for patients to read. Tailoring communications at each stage can convey compassion and increase patient satisfaction. Customizing patient statements gives providers the ability to simplify and customize bills quickly and easily, turning an often confusing process into one that adds value. Including relevant, personalized messages and educational updates can turn billing statements into a useful resource, all with the potential to drive revenue. In addition to offering personalized payment options, providers can also find out whether a patient prefers to discuss billing by phone or email. Minimizing friction at the point of payment is crucial to fostering compassionate collections. Providers should offer flexible options that include in-person, telephone, mobile and online patient portals, so they can pay in a way that’s most convenient for them. This also frees up staff to help those patients who may need a little extra help understanding their statement. Want to learn more? Check out Experian Health’s Collections Optimization Manager which helps providers segment patients based on an individual’s propensity to pay and payment preferences, informing a compassionate patient engagement strategy and improving collections.

With COVID-19 leading to postponed and cancelled medical appointments, more consumers are turning to “contactless care”. Recent figures suggest telehealth adoption has shot up from just 11% in 2019 to 46% over the course of the pandemic, and some providers are seeing up to 175 times the number of telehealth patients than pre-COVID. As they grapple with the surge in patient volumes alongside regulatory change, many are playing catch-up. For patients, rushed implementation means the telehealth experience can fall short of expectations. Compared to the easy one-click services available with online retail and finance platforms, telehealth can feel clunky and frustrating. Technical issues, not knowing how to prepare for appointments, and a lack of awareness of available services can all taint the consumer experience. Providers looking to launch (or re-launch) a patient-friendly telehealth service ahead of a possible second wave should aim to check off these four considerations before rolling it out. 1. Prioritize easy online scheduling for virtual care Allowing patients to book telehealth appointments when it suits them will help to reduce no-shows and minimize delays. A telehealth platform that integrates with physician calendars and other patient management and record management systems will keep things running smoothly at the operational level, while creating a convenient and secure way for patients to schedule care. For example, when Benefis Health System implemented Patient Schedule, more than 50% of patients chose to book their appointments out of normal working hours. Sam Martin, digital developer and web specialist at Benefis, says: “If you’re not allowing your patients to schedule online, you’re behind the times. You can only benefit from it. We’re seeing the number of online bookings continue to grow every month, confirming that this solution is working for patients.” 2. Include quick and reliable coverage checks With the pandemic and resulting unemployment putting both provider and patient cashflow under strain, any available commercial or government coverage must be identified quickly. Providers should run automated coverage checks to find any missing coverage and select the right financial pathway for each patient as soon as possible. Not only will this create a more compassionate patient financial experience, it’ll allow the collections team to focus their attention on the right accounts and minimize the risk of write-offs. Automated Coverage Discovery screens for eligibility through Medicare, Medicaid or commercial plans, without any collections agency getting involved. With this tool, Essentia Health were able to find coverage for 16,990 accounts that were assumed to be self-pay or uninsured. Kathryn Wrazidlo, Patient Access Director, says: “This has helped patients because we’re actually billing their insurance versus billing them for self-pay. It’s helping staff because they’re billing the insurance company much quicker. There’s less rework.” 3. Get telehealth claims right first time Given that the pandemic may cost hospitals an estimated $200 billion between March and June 2020, there’s no room for the added financial burden of claim denials. But as telemedicine expands, so does its regulatory framework. Providers must keep track of changing payer updates and coding rules so that claims are submitted right first time. An automated, data-driven claims management tool can help providers analyze claims with greater confidence and spot any errors well in advance of submission. Telehealth alerts can be included as customized edits, to confirm whether the patient’s current plan includes virtual care. To help providers manage this process, Experian Health is offering free access to telehealth payer policy alerts through our COVID-19 resource center. 4. Protect patient data As with any part of the digital patient experience, a multi-layered approach to protecting sensitive information is a must. Ideally, this will include two-factor patient identity authentication, device recognition and out-of-wallet checks whenever a log-in attempt looks suspicious. Automating this process with a tool such as Precise ID allows providers to integrate multiple data points to check that a patient is who they say they are, in a way that’s HIPAA-compliant. This makes it harder for thieves to access patient data, without burdening the patient with extra checks as they manage their information. Retaining patient volume and rebuilding revenue through “contactless” care won’t be possible unless the entire telehealth journey is as seamless as possible. From scheduling to payment, Experian Health can help you create a virtual patient experience that’s convenient, secure and reliable. To learn more about how to build a better digital patient journey, download our free eBook.

Consumers today expect fast and convenient access to almost everything, healthcare included. While still only offered by a fraction of healthcare providers out there, online scheduling is catching on throughout the market – especially as more providers turn to telehealth solutions during COVID-19. Still, despite the uptick in online self-scheduling, there are patients who prefer to call to schedule an appointment and call centers may be overwhelmed as a large number of patients rush to reschedule appointments that were cancelled or postponed due to COVID-19. To best prepare, providers will want to ensure the best possible patient experience for those calling to schedule an appointment. This can be done by enabling online scheduling throughout the call center. Here are five ways to make patient scheduling easy through your call center: Save timeWith a manual scheduling process, patients often have to sit on the phone – sometimes for upwards of twenty minutes – while also being put on hold or having to wait to be called back to confirm an appointment. It’s not only an awful patient experience but imagine what all that time adds up with the number of scheduling calls providers receive every single day? By reducing call times you’re making the process more efficient for more routine scheduling calls while also opening up call center agents to focus on those patients who need more attention. Automate the rulesThe key to reducing time spent scheduling an appointment is automating the scheduling protocols and business rules of the providers in the scheduling platform. Call center agents traditionally have to manually navigate expansive spreadsheets or three-ring binders of business rules with the scheduling criteria for each provider. Experian automates all those rules in our system and translates them to easy Q&A prompts for the scheduler while on the phone with a patient. In short, rules automation equals quicker scheduling (while maintaining accuracy). Improve trainingBecause the rules are automated, the training process for call center agents is made much more efficient. Where agents would have had to learn the various nuances of scheduling complex specialty care for a variety of providers, they now just need to learn how to use the scheduling platform. The scheduling protocols are automated and help dialogues will pop-up to explain and guide agents through the scheduling process for every provider and care type. Where it may have taken 60 to 90 days to master scheduling for a new specialty, schedulers can now be experts for that specialty in as little as one hour. IntegrationIn order to get the most out of any scheduling solution it needs to integrate into the provider’s practice management system. Leveraging APIs or HL7 bi-directional connectivity, all bookings occur in real-time. This prevents any double-bookings and also removes any calendar maintenance by staff to block and recheck time for providers. With the integration, bookings from the call center transact the same as if a staff member was logged in at the providers office and scheduling on the spot. Automated outreachProviders can use automated outreach to augment their call center capabilities. With it they can send text message and IVR campaigns to patients with the ability for patients to schedule an appointment in real-time on the phone. Check out Patient Schedule to learn more or download our free guide about how scheduling can be made easier for your patients through all of your access channels.